Still not a fan of the livery, but the E-Jet looks 100 times better than the A319. If anything, it's just weird to see a stumpy short AA jet. All their airplanes, even their smallest narrowbodies, are long airplanes. There's something off about a squat, tall A319 in an AAL livery. Oh, and obviously the mangled swiss-cheese titles.

When aircraft are being towed with this type of tow tractor, the nose gear is actually up on a ramp and off the ground so the tail will look lower because it is lower. Nothing wrong with this aircraft.

Still cannot believe people care so much about the windows. I don't even notice them unless they're explicitly pointed out. And even then, I don't find it detracts at all.

Of the planes repainted so far, it's probably my least favorite example of the new livery, though. I find it works better on longer aircraft, so it doesn't appear so cluttered. I saw this photo, and felt like I was looking at an A-318.

With that said, the new livery looks quite nice. I sincerely doubt it will be changed when the merger goes through, but who knows?

I like AA's new livery and it looks amazing on their 737's but for some reason that livery is not working on this A319 and it could just be the camera angle but from this picture that plane looks horrible in AA's new livery. Hopefully it will look much better once seen in person.

This livery in general is a tragedy. I understand the need to paint the fuselages but the scheme on any aircraft looks terrible; this one just looks worse. I was on the ramp yesterday at LAX and a newly painted 738 was parked next to an older (but immaculate looking) 763 and the contrast is staggering. It made me miss the old scheme so much more...

Oh no! I can't watch! Somebody gouge my eyes out please, I beg you! It is hideous, they got rid of a classic livery which was one of America's icons. It only looks good on American Eagle. In the AA/US merger, they should keep the US livery (must admit I think it is beautiful!) with American titles! American you have the most horrendous paint job in the skies!

It looks like a mouse walked over and ate big chunks of cheese. Ugly! Who approved this disaster? And when will Airbus make an aircraft (except A330/340) that has a decent looking nose section? I can't decide if A320, A350, or A380 is uglier.

FAA killed the purpose of my old signature: Use of approved electronic devices is now permitted.

Quoting AeroWesty (Reply 2):What a disaster. Oversized tail artwork, with the bullet holes in the logo and billboard titles really obvious. Would someone please save this monstrosity from our skies?

Please and thank you.

[quote=N328KF,reply=5]This is awful. American wanted to look unique. It looks uniquely horrific. I know they had to change due to increasing numbers of CFRP aircraft, but they could have gone with another look.[/quote
LOL Couldnt have said it better.

On the big birds it looks OK... on the smaller aircraft this livery is horrendous. AMERICAN titles are waaaaaay to big, which in turn makes the aircraft look stubby and the tail is just well... a mess. God I hope Doug Parker saves us from looking at this in the future. Theres a lot of US airbuses that will look like this eventually, plus all of the AA orders. Yuck. I know liveries are not a priority, but good grief maybe they could use a better livery at a lower cost and justify it that way.

I agree, it just looks stumpy, maybe the angle of it. I think the american eagle in that livery in that picture looks fantastic. Hopefully, with the longer a320 and 321, it won't nearly awful as it does here.

That is a discussion for a whole different thread. But I definitely agree. At first, I didn't really like the new AA scheme, it just was sad to see the classy, historic livery and scheme come to an end. Now, when I have finally gotten to like it, I have to see this?!?!

I´ll disagree here. I don´t mind this A319 so much. My biggest gripe with AA´s new livery is the rather large, featureless and bland grey fuselage. On the A319 we don´t get so much of it, and, at least in this picture, the fuselage looks more silver than grey.

The E175, on the other hand, does look grey.... is it the picture? Or is the finnish different?

Quoting AeroWesty (Reply 2):The only plane I've seen this livery work acceptably well on are the T-tailed regional jets.

It's okay on the 777s also, but on the 319 it's apparently a disaster.

Quoting D L X (Reply 10):Now see, that looks a lot better, mostly because they didn't put the titles across the windows. That was a major failure on the 319 livery.

You'll notice that the titles are also more proportional to the fuselage. The other (IMO most glaring) problem with the 319's titles is that they start too far back because of the flight symbol, which doesn't stand out against the fuselage as well and so gets missed by the eye.

Compare a similar angle with a Finnair 319 (a livery with a similar approach to the titles):

The Finnair titles start much further forward, and they're also much larger so that they're more in proportion to the fuselage. AA's titles just look lost - too far back to be identified with the front of the plane, but not far back enough to look like they connect with the whole fuselage. And it looks hideous.

If they put the flight symbol directly over the door and moved the titles up accordingly, then they might have something decent.

I'll wait until I a) see it with the shades up, and b) see it in direct sunlight before I pass my final judgment. I'm willing to bet that at a different angle, it looks ten times better. I still miss the traditional eagle and I think the absence of the "AA" from the brand is a terrible mistake, especially when the tail is what it is now - but otherwise, it'll do the job.

Is anybody organising an online petition or any other action to try to push the new management to stop this car crash? I cannot think of another livery in aviation history that is this bad. A few hundred thousand signatures, perhaps many more, some powerful press coverage, and this coffin with wings would be pushed back into the hanger. I can't do it because I'm not an American - please please somebody over there step up to the plate! Thanks

Quoting QANTASvJet (Reply 65):
Is anybody organising an online petition or any other action to try to push the new management to stop this car crash? I cannot think of another livery in aviation history that is this bad. A few hundred thousand signatures, perhaps many more, some powerful press coverage, and this coffin with wings would be pushed back into the hanger. I can't do it because I'm not an American - please please somebody over there step up to the plate! Thanks

There was one when the livery first came out. Not sure what happened with that though...

I already said that it looks ok in my previous post, but I think its best to wait for a better photo to make better judgement. I know some still wont like it even then...

Quoting QANTASvJet (Reply 65):Is anybody organising an online petition or any other action to try to push the new management to stop this car crash? I cannot think of another livery in aviation history that is this bad. A few hundred thousand signatures, perhaps many more, some powerful press coverage, and this coffin with wings would be pushed back into the hanger. I can't do it because I'm not an American - please please somebody over there step up to the plate! Thanks

I wasn't all gung ho about the new livery when it was unveiled, but when I saw it in person, it changed my opinion quite a bit. i've had two flights on aircraft wearing the new livery (738 and 772) and it was a real treat to see it close up before boarding. The 77W of course looked outstanding in the new livery as well, parked right next to our 772 at DFW.

However, I still much prefer the old bare metal livery.

The biggest mistake made by most human beings: Listening to only half, understanding just a quarter and telling double.

I didn't realize how much I'd pine for the 'old coke' livery... Bring it back. Please. I sinned... I should never have asked for an AA livery update. Please bring back the old livery after the merger AMR...

Quoting BEG2IAH (Reply 51):The only AA aircraft that looks half-decent in this new livery is a B763

That looked fine. No wonder its on the billboards...

Quoting solnabo (Reply 58):AA choosed this livery, live with it or is it becouse its Airbus?

Its the bullet holes in the livery. The A319 is a bit stubby, but not an ugly airframe. Put the logo through a grater and oversize the tail image, and its just ugly on a narrowbody. The E-jet looks better as they shrank the wording to eliminate the 'bullet holes.'

AA was not a loyal Boeing customer. They bought Douglas aircraft whenever possible as well. If anything, AA has been consistently a split manufacturer airline. Boeing thought that by buying MD they would lock up the loyal Douglas customers. Instead, those customers are now looking to Airbus to avoid the pitfalls of a single supplier.

Projectile vomit! But you know what, if that plane came to ATL today, I would be the first to grab the camera just because it's so different. AA's first 319 in new colors, with sharklets. But I would still make sure I had a barf bag strapped to my mouth as I was shooting.

You are comparing apples to oranges. LH has had a split fleet for years & has not been completely loyal to the aircraft manufacturers of any one nation . AA's Airbus order is somewhat shocking to many folks in the US because (unlike LH) AA has traditionally shown loyalty to US manufacturers when selecting their mainline fleet. I am sorry if it came off as if I was Airbus bashing-that was not my intention. I just find the image of an AA A319 rather ironic.

Wow, I was finally growing to like the livery (ok, like the fuselage and tolerate the tail) but this a319 just negated any progress I had made. The E-175 looks great, in reference to its proportionality, but the a319 just looks plain bad. No need to get fancy with the words. Just bad.

Against popular belief, my username has nothing to do with the airline. \______(---)______/

The A319 looks truncated because of the tail design extending too far below the tail. If they only painted the tail fin, it wouldn't look so stubby. I'm surprised their brand team is okay with a giant hole smack dab in the middle of their flight wing symbol logo thing.

I have 3 family members who work for AA and have 25+ years seniority, they and their friends where talking and i overheard them say that they were disappointed with the livery when they saw it,but once they got to see it in person it was absolutely Beautiful and they fell in love with it, so i have a feeling that while time progresses and more people have the opportunity to see it, opinions were change. I myself liked it from the start,I love when airlines that are named after their home country take pride and show it on their aircraft, the old one was obsolete and was nothing but a title and 3 strips,Boring.

So guys american wanted to put a flag on the plane but they weren't gonna coat all planes with it so they chose the tail, and lets be honest here, you cant put a RECTANGLE shaped flag onto a RIGHT TRIANGLE without it looking cheesy,and i think american did a really great job with it,the only airline who has been successful at pulling off a flag coated tail with all the details is obviously Swiss, its simple an easy. another carrier is BA but they only used partial the tail and AA wanted to go big and use the entire tail .So don't be complaining if their aren't any stars or small details because the american flag doesn't fit the shape and has to many details to fit onto the tail for it to be perfect. because they cant do it they wanted to fit as much as they can.

Quoting D L X (Reply 10):Now see, that looks a lot better, mostly because they didn't put the titles across the windows. That was a major failure on the 319 livery.

I disagree, when you have a whole lotta plane to cover it always looks better if you actually use the space, why put tiny subtitles at the very front when you can use so much more space,this is what i really loved about frontier they used the entire plane,but once they put a URL code on the livery it was completely ruined,no plane should have a URL printed on it,even if its a winglet. (hint hint WN)

some of the overreactions on here are just a tad humorous. We get it if you don't like it. Personally, it doesn't bother me, yes I liked the old livery but American has been due for a change and a new look for a long time.

What I don't get is why doesn't the new JL livery get as much hate. IMO it's the laziest livery of modern times. Eurowhite is fine if you pull it off the way AY does. In contrast AA's new livery is just stunning in person. Something about how it looks on the screen doesn't work. I wonder if the bulletholes in the 319 are less pronounced in real life? Agree they look pathetic on the screen but I'll reserve final judgement until I see it in person.

Quoting AeroWesty (Reply 2):
with the bullet holes in the logo and billboard titles really obvious.

Keep in mind that the only reason why that looks so obvious in this picture is because the window shades are down. When the shades are lifted, it will look much less obvious. No one mentions this issue when discussing the livery for B6, F9, G4, or any other carrier with large billboard titles.

Quoting XFSUgimpLB41X (Reply 83):I've seen the livery in person a number of times... definitely hasn't grown on me

I've seen new livery at ORD quite a few times and I wanted to like it, but just can't. I have to admit that the tail design looks interesting from a few feet away, but once you see the whole aircraft something is just wrong. I've seen it in rainy weather, sunny weather, during the day, at night... Just doesn't do it.

FAA killed the purpose of my old signature: Use of approved electronic devices is now permitted.

I still think they should have put the 'flight symbol' on the tail instead of the stylized flag.

If you look closely at the picture Embraer 175, it isn't even painted correctly. The first red stripe at the top of the tail is thinner than all the other red stripes. Clearly the designers had difficulty or did not scale the logo properly and the text correctly on each aircraft.

Quoting asuflyer (Reply 88):I still think they should have put the 'flight symbol' on the tail instead of the stylized flag.

Agree completely! Additionally, making the American titles smaller and putting them above the windows to avoid the bullet hole sensation would be nice. The font size they use on the Eagle EMB aircraft seems fitting, too bad they cant do that on mainline. Good Grief, that might be a halfway good looking paint job if they did that (and maybe add some color to the engines or at least the winglets/tips)

Obviously detail at American HQ isn't a strong point . Placing the LOGO on a aircraft where there will be HOLE through it....derrr! Come on American, you should know better than most that the logo is one of the most important parts of your brand and should be treated a little better or at least thought of a little better.

I am a fan of the new livery as the old livery was out dated and a change is always good, however to just paint the same livery on every aircraft type without taking into account each aircraft shape (meaning window line, window location, wing, tail size and fuselage bulk/size and then adjusting the livery accordingly) tells me the marketing department is run by 15 year olds! or god forbid 28 year olds just out of uni who think they know it all!

You don't see BA with a window in the middle of their crest, or KLM with a window in the middle of their crown, or Qantas with the legs chopped off their Kangaroo (they adjusted the roo because of the A380).

When I first saw the new livery I thought the fuselage looked great, while the tail was hideous. Now, with the bullet holes across the logo and the titles, I'm not sure what I despise more, the tail or the fuselage...

I've never liked the new American livery and still don't. I've always thought that the best tail logo would be the little Eagle and red and blue stripe they have in front of the words American, rather than an obnoxious strangely designed American flag.

Thank goodness i'm close to retirement. I have tried, so hard, to like the livery but it is impossible. I think what makes it more tolerable on the RJ is the font is smaller. Looks a tad classier if that's possible. Still hoping Doug might save us from this elementary school art class disaster.

Quoting AllegiantFlyer (Reply 78):I disagree, when you have a whole lotta plane to cover it always looks better if you actually use the space, why put tiny subtitles at the very front when you can use so much more space,this is what i really loved about frontier they used the entire plane

Frontier did use the entire plane, and it looked good. But AA did not use the entire plane - they decided to use 2/5ths of it, and worse, they decided to not start the titles at the front. It just looks shoddy.

Quoting A36001 (Reply 91): tells me the marketing department is run by 15 year olds! or god forbid 28 year olds just out of uni who think they know it all!

Well AA said they wanted to turn modern,and lets be honest,there is nobody more modern on this planet than us 15 year olds hahaha. Plus since the american people keep voting to cut funding education its not our fault.

On another note the old metal livery/logo/brand holds a sad sad past of : a total of some of the most deadly 26 incidents and accidents, two of which were hijacked. Bad Customer service. Low employee pay. MASSIVE layoffs. the closing of 5 hubs. And of course, the bankruptcy. So it really was the better option for them to start building the reputation that they had lost, so they ditched the negative brand.

Ummm bullet holes? You guys realize that the windows shades are down right? And how does that make it any different to Any other aircraft in the new AA livery? They all have the "bullet holes". I guess no one else noticed:

I looked at the picture and had to stare at it for a good 15-20 seconds to realize that it is not an American Eagle airplane. It just looks so . . . small and underwhelming. Oh well, hopefully it'll grow on me.

1. Place the flight symbol on door L1 then start the titles where the flight symbol currently stands
2. Make the font smaller and utilize the space up until the wing of the aircraft.
3. Make the font smaller
4. Perhaps lower the titles to make it look ala BA.

Quoting A36001 (Reply 91):I am a fan of the new livery as the old livery was out dated and a change is always good, however to just paint the same livery on every aircraft type without taking into account each aircraft shape (meaning window line, window location, wing, tail size and fuselage bulk/size and then adjusting the livery accordingly) tells me the marketing department is run by 15 year olds! or god forbid 28 year olds just out of uni who think they know it all!

You don't see BA with a window in the middle of their crest, or KLM with a window in the middle of their crown, or Qantas with the legs chopped off their Kangaroo

That's actually a good point. The reason that the A319 looks so bad is because the livery isn't proportional to the size of the aircraft. It almost looks like they took the 73H decals and slapped them on the side. With a bit of thought a decent designer could right-size the titles, flight symbol etc so they look good on an individual aircraft, but still have a uniform product.

Garpd says something along the lines that when designing a livery you should design it for everything from an CRJ to an A380. In this case, I feel that AA designed it for the 73H and 77W and forget everything else, as IMHO even the 772 looks a bit "squished".

Still, since you mentioned airlines that got it "right", in the interests of fairness i should say that the QF A332s look terrible. The seemingly A380 sized titles look ridiculous in comparison to the 737s/747s/380s in the same titles.

Quoting AllegiantFlyer (Reply 78):you cant put a RECTANGLE shaped flag onto a RIGHT TRIANGLE without it looking cheesy,and i think american did a really great job with it,the only airline who has been successful at pulling off a flag coated tail with all the details is obviously Swiss, its simple an easy.

Actually PK's current livery does a pretty good job of putting a stylized Pakistani flag on their tails....basically they rotate it...

That's one of the options I like, though would be better if the Logo and title were placed above the window line to avoid the bullet hole effect. Frontier can get away with it as their font is large and bold enough to carry it, similar to Easyjet.

True, the titles looks to big on the A330's, needs to be one size smaller, the 767's are perfect in my view. I think the A330 fleet are using the 747 size titles?....maybe they should be using the 767/787 size?,

Quoting thomasphoto60 (Reply 57):A plane that only a mother could love... Still one of the most hideous liveries ever conjured up.

Quoting QANTASvJet (Reply 62):I cannot think of another livery in aviation history that is this bad.

Quoting lightsaber (Reply 66):I didn't realize how much I'd pine for the 'old coke' livery... Bring it back. Please. I sinned... I should never have asked for an AA livery update. Please bring back the old livery after the merger AMR...

Quoting 93Sierra (Reply 68):Ugly ugly ugly duckling that will never turn into a swan.

I honestly don't see why people aren't liking this livery.... There aren't really any pictures for the time being so that's probably one reason why.

It looks really nice in my opinion. It kind of reminds me of NWA with their grey fuselages, which I miss. Accept it's missing the red tail. Overall though I like it!!

And as I said previously, once those shades are down, it's going to look great!! (Maybe, or maybe not)
And most people aren't going to care about the livery so even if us aviation geeks don't like it, AA aint gonna give a damn.

Great plane but it looks awful. The AC logo looks impressive but something must be done to tweak this. I'm sure that the AA pax will enjoy the comfort and extra space of the 319, but close your eyes when you board.

Quoting Tristan7977 (Reply 118):It kind of reminds me of NWA with their grey fuselages, which I miss. Accept it's missing the red tail. Overall though I like it!!

NWA's final livery was beautiful, a classic. A shade of silver-gray that took on different hues depending on the light... a lovely golden hue during sunsets, for example. One of the best liveries ever. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, This AA livery, sir, is no NWA!

Quoting bmibaby737 (Reply 135):Personally, I think it looks quite smart on the Airbus A319... for those of you that would like to view the photo in larger, the photographer, Boris Metal has uploaded a photo here.

Thanks, was looking for a larger photo. My view of it hasn't changed, I still think it looks ok.

How is it that the New AA livery looks so good on the Boeing 737-800 and yet so terrible on this A319? (and I'm an Airbus fanboy to whom the A319 nearly always looks great). Its a pity they haven't done anything interesting (livery wise) with the Sharkets.

Incremental changes I would make would be to make the titles say 'American Airlines' rather than just 'American' ('American' on its own looks tacky), make the titles slightly more bold, continue the flag thing on the tail all the way to the bottom of the fuselage.

Overall, I think the new AA livery looks great; lightyears better than the old one which always looked like a dirty, faded mess.

First to fly the Boeing 787-9 with Air New Zealand and ZK-NZE; NZ103, AKL-SYD, 2014/08/09

This plane really should not have American written on the side of it. The only thing actually resembling America will be the flag with the registration (provided they don't butcher that, too ). Many other countries' national carriers' liveries have something to do with the respective country's flag and do it tastefully (i.e. SA, BA, JL, EK, etc). They don't butcher the flag to death and try to stylize it, taking away the most important part of the flag, replacing them with unnessary striping (which, I do have to admit is in a beautiful shade of blue).

I think this is the best solution. It doesn't take redoing the entire rebranding campaign. If they moved the titles to below the window line and extended it out to "American Airlines", like "American Eagle" is written on the regional fleet, then put the flight symbol on the tail, it would solve every problem AA currently faces with this livery. I'd throw in a more silver-tone paint job for the fuselage a la Northwest at the same time, but that's just me.

Quoting brons2 (Reply 123):Well, the new livery has succeeded in one way. We are all talking about AA...

Actually by this metric it is a BIG fail.

One of the objectives of the re-branding initiative was to move away from "AA" and towards "American" since in some parts of the world "AA" was not recognized. Therefore "AA" was removed from the new livery. The fact that "we are all talking about AA" is anecdotal evidence that the re-branding effort failed to meet this objective... at least on a.net.

was checking out the new paint in the USA last week and I have to say the livery is really ugly. The body is too gray and the flag is far too obtrusive. Can't believe anyone would pay for this, almost like AA playing a bad joke on US Airways management.

Quoting CIDFlyer (Reply 79):some of the overreactions on here are just a tad humorous. We get it if you don't like it. Personally, it doesn't bother me, yes I liked the old livery but American has been due for a change and a new look for a long time.

I believe that most people would agree with you that we liked the old livery, and AA was due for a new one, and they needed a new look. But given that the new look would allow an all new, clean sheet design, and they had all the possibilities available to them to work with. The fact that this is what they came up with as the best of all possible options is somewhat surprising to most of us.

Quoting asuflyer (Reply 88):I still think they should have put the 'flight symbol' on the tail instead of the stylized flag.

Quoting zkojq (Reply 148):How is it that the New AA livery looks so good on the Boeing 737-800 and yet so terrible on this A319? (and I'm an Airbus fanboy to whom the A319 nearly always looks great). Its a pity they haven't done anything interesting (livery wise) with the Sharkets.

Why does everyone like the paint on the B738 and not on the A320?
Honestly, I did not like the livery initially. But it slowly grew on me.

Well I feel the "American" is way too much in "middle". It is almost in middle of the airplane. A little push to the left might have made it look better. Nevertheless, always exciting to see new liveries on the same old' aircraft

Quoting jayeshrulz (Reply 158):Why does everyone like the paint on the B738 and not on the A320?

I don't think "everyone" likes the paint on the 738. I think TWO people like the paint on the 738. The rest of us hate it on both.

That said, the 738 allows for a little more space to work with. The 319 is too jammed in. The titles are crammed in over the wing, half-obscured by the windows and winglets, the tail looks silly, like it was stolen off another airline's jet and glued on… They're all bad, but this is just the worst, that's all.

Would everyone just calm down about the livery. They ARE NOT gonna change it because a bunch of aviation nuts feel that it looks like crap. We are a very small minority and probably the only ones besides AA employees that even care.

It may have it's faults but until new CEO Parker says otherwise, they are not gonna change it so just suck it up and accept the fact you will be starring at this for years to come...

-- Rant Over --

Safe to say though that the A319 is the only one that looks a bit odd to me, but then again it may look better in person or in a different angle or light.

Quoting bmibaby737 (Reply 135):
Personally, I think it looks quite smart on the Airbus A319... for those of you that would like to view the photo in larger, the photographer, Boris Metal has uploaded a photo here.

Quoting questions (Reply 153): The fact that "we are all talking about AA" is anecdotal evidence that the re-branding effort failed to meet this objective... at least on a.net.

Not true. Old habits die hard. All of us on A.net have been calling it AA for many years. That's ingrained in us. What do you expect all of us to look at the new livery photos and wake up the next day and suddenly start calling it "American".

Heck, I still call the SF Giants stadium "Pac Bell" since that was its original name.

Quoting RedTailDTW (Reply 161):It may have it's faults but until new CEO Parker says otherwise, they are not gonna change it so just suck it up and accept the fact you will be starring at this for years to come...

Suck up nothing...it stinks and the people deserve to be heard. Nobody expects them to change their livery but that's not nearly enough reason to keep quiet about it.

It's an abomination and should be sent back to whatever level of hell from whence it came.

First, the fact that the new livery doesn't look that great on the A319 is no reason to ditch it. It looks better on everything else in the fleet, from the Embrear 145 to the 773.

Second, why is everyone upset that AA has the logo and title in billboard size, but no one cares about Ryanair? If you look at a Ryanair 738, there are "bullet holes" in the harp logo and the title. Not that Michael O'Leary would give two hoots that anyone thinks they should change the title and logo to get rid of the "bullet holes."

Quoting UA735WL (Reply 40):Awful...the 320 family is (IMO) already not much to look at, but this takes the cake. Not to mention that an Airbus with "American" written on the side is the a.net equivalent of an oxymoron...

Quoting ckfred (Reply 166):Second, why is everyone upset that AA has the logo and title in billboard size, but no one cares about Ryanair? If you look at a Ryanair 738, there are "bullet holes" in the harp logo and the title.

That's comparing two separate effects. Ryanair's harp logo on the fuselage isn't the only place on the aircraft it appears. There's a huge unbulletholed version on the tail.

The billboard type is also different. Large, bold capital letters for Ryanair, while American is in thin upper and lower case letters, with far less contrast between the paint colors. The impact the windows and shades each have are far different.

Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 170):The majority of the traveling public either likes it or doesn't care

Misrepresenting the metrics again, I see. Here's a link to the "statistical analysis of the social media impact of American Airlines' rebranding", which has been posted a number of times by this member:

Note that not one time, not once, did the actual logo or tail redesign have any direct feedback read by these metrics. All that the metrics measured were increases in the awareness of the airline during heavy advertising periods—which are not compared with like periods of comparable advertising by other airlines—and reflect "likes" of the videos of the rebranding process, but not the actual results of the rebranding.

Decide for yourselves if "the majority of the traveling public either likes it or doesn't care".

Quoting sankaps (Reply 171):Quoting flyguy89 (Reply 170):
The old livery would no longer be practical to apply to new aircraft which are more and more composite-ridden.

Sure, but they could have retained the grey-paint version of the old livery, like they had on their A300s for the same reason.

They could have, but then everyone would be dumping on AA for being unoriginal and boring, not to mention the criticisms of an all grey aircraft. Personally, I would prefer the new livery over what you described by a mile. The polished aluminum looks great, it's an iconic livery, but when the polished aluminum look is no longer possible, any imitation of it would just look sad.